History

Key words

Abstract

One of the stages we have made in the process of publishing the German–Romanian grammar of Ioan Piuariu Molnar consisted in identifying the patterns followed by the author. The statement which claims that Molnar’s grammar followed the pattern of Samuel Micu and George Șincai’s grammar, Elementa linguæ daco-romanæ sive valachicæ (Vienna, 1780) is widespread in today’s literature review. We have found that, in case of some grammar chapters, the influence of this model is clearly confirmed. But there are also chapters different from their corresponding ones in Elementa or chapters that emerge only in Molnar’s grammar, not in that one of Micu and Șincai. This is explained by the fact that Molnar also followed the pattern of foreign grammars, which at that time were successful and were widely spread; these are two French grammars written in German with Latin grammatical terminology: the work of J.R. des Pepliers, Nouvelle et parfaite grammaire royale françoise et allemande. Neue und vollständige königliche französische Grammatik, bisher unter dem Nahmen des Herrn der Pepliers vielmals herausgegeben (Leipzig, 1765, M.G. Weidmanns Erben und Reich Printing House), respectively the grammar of Hilmar Curas, Erleichterte und durch lange Erfahrung verbesserte französische Grammatik (Berlin, 1759, Friedrich Nicolai Printing House). In this article we have revealed the chapters of morphology in which the influence of the Pepliers and Curas’ grammars is confirmed. The influence of foreign patterns is reflected in: the structure of the chapters, the used terminology and the German sequence of words; on the latter, we have highlighted where German equivalents for the Romanian words indicated by Molnar are identical with the German equivalents listed in Pepliers’ grammar or that of Curas for the French words.